New tech tree - why oh why?

[Arkatreides]

Ok, so I am a bit of a history buff, but am I the only one who thinks that the new tech tree is completely unhistorical, unintuitive and downright ridiculous? The tree in CIv2 was quite realistic, ok sometimes it was necessary to 'think out of the box' to follow some of the dependancies but it general it reflected more or less human history.

The Civ 3 tech tree however is just plain wrong! And what's more, there are just too many advances that 'do nothing'. Civ2 had those too but they were at a minimun whereas here they are just littered all over the place.

My question to Firaxis is: Why did you change the tree? It certainly was NOT broken and with the rearrangement of just a few advances you could have easily incorporated the current era structure into the old tree. This area of the game definitely feels unfinished ... (did we run out of time by any chance?)

I definitely will make good use of the rules editor and change it back to what it was in Civ2!

[Archmage]

I'll tell you one Civ NOT to research. Advanced Flight. It's not a prerequisite for anything and all you get out of it is Helicopter and Paratrooper. The Strategy Guide says not to research Republic either unless you use the Government type.

[Dis]

It definately has some problems

I can see what they were trying to accomplish though. They were going for play balance (sound familiar?). And yes even realism. In civ2 you could bypass several paths and go for very modern techs without knowing some ancient stuff. So what they did to help alleviate beelines, was to make 4 ages where most techs are necessary to get out of the age.

I actually like the age requirements. They reduce beelines that were overpowering by the human in civ2. Although I agree that many techs are worthless, and are essentually place fillers that are prerequisites for other techs.

Another reason is simplicity. Like combat they wanted this game to be simple for the average gamer (they don't care about us hardcore guys ). And they save money by not having to publish a poster.

but I don't have too many other complaints about the tech tree.

[Arkatreides]

I never said the eras were bad, in fact I really like them and I agree with your beeline comment. All I said was that there was no need to take the tech requirements from Civ2 (which were sensible to some extent) and completely restructure them. As I said I will work on a mod that changes it back to how it was in Civ2 (with a few exceptions).

[Dis]

I haven't looked at them real closely. I may have to break the well used civ2 poster out again . At first glance they seemed similar.

[Stuff2]

I think that the reason for that (useless techs) is simply beacouse they have looked at the tech model from the wrong view. The best way to get a good tech tree is simply to list all improvements, units, wonders and political options etc that should be included in the game, and first after that they can decide in what order the units and improvements and stuff should appear in the game and finally after that it's time to put names on the techs. Also the number of techs compared to civ2 has decreased not increased. Civ2 had 89 techs.
I would rather had seen a game where every unit, improvement ,government type etc would have it's own prereq tech. It would be more fun trading tech knowing that every tech will give you a specific benefit.
In short, they should have based the tech-tree on the game instead of basing the game on the tech-tree.

[Arkatreides]

I give you an example that strikes me as being much less intuitive then before:

Monarchy: Now Warrior Code and Polytheism
Used to be: Code of Laws and Ceremonial Burial

I truly ask WHY? Polytheism was definitely not linked to monarchy. Or if it was, then so was Monotheism. Warrior Code? Well I cannot really see how such an advance can help the advent of monarchy.
In Civ2 however, both prerequisites made sense: Monarchy was linked to 'religion', the King often being the messenger of the deity on earth and the Code of Laws brought structure to the society.

[Arkatreides]

Of course, the other reason all the techs are the way they are is because they wanted a nice, disentangled tech tree.

[SuiteSisterMary]

I truly ask WHY? Polytheism was definitely not linked to monarchy. Or if it was, then so was Monotheism. Warrior Code? Well I cannot really see how such an advance can help the advent of monarchy.

If you say 'british monarchy' instead of 'monarchy' then you'd be right.

[Arkatreides]

Ok, I'm working on the tech tree - does anyone know how to ADD new technologies (and maybe units) as opposed to just renaming and reordering them?

[Pyrodrew]

Philosophy use to give a free tech to the 1st Civ to discover it... now it appears to do nothing.

[Arkatreides]

*bump*

[Fidel]

Originally posted by Pyrodrew
Philosophy use to give a free tech to the 1st Civ to discover it... now it appears to do nothing.

its useless go crafts!

[Zanzin]

Originally posted by Arkatreides
*bump*

Naughty, no bumping

[Peterk]

Mind you...most of the dead-end techs give you a wonder chance , and usually a pretty high-culture wonder (Hanging Gardens - Republic, Bach's Cathedral - Music Theory), so you should really think about whether you want to skip a tech like this. If there's a chance at the wonder I usually go for it.